The present invention relates to an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection arrangement and to an ESD protection method.
Conventionally, ESD protection arrangements are used in integrated semiconductor circuits so as to protect input or output pins. In case of input or output pins which are used for transferring high-frequency signals, e.g. in the radio-frequency range, the provision of ESD protection is more complicated, as the additional capacitive due to the ESD protection arrangement can no longer be neglected. It is therefore desirable to reduce the effects of the additional capacitive load. At the same time, a sufficient ESD protection performance has to be maintained.